Book description
On 21 June 1958, Geneva Hilliker Ellroy left her home in California.
She was found strangled the next day. Her ten year-old son James had
been with her estranged husband all weekend and was informed of her
death on his return. Her murderer was never found, but her death had
an enduring effect on her son - he spent his teens and early adult
years as a wino, petty burglar and derelict.
Only later, through his obsession with crime fiction, triggered by
his mother's murder, did Ellroy begin to delve into his past. Shortly
after the publication of his groundbreaking novel WHITE JAZZ,
he determined to return to Los Angeles and, with the help of veteran
detective Bill Stoner, attempt to solve the 38-year-old killing.
The result is one of the few classics of crime non-fiction and
autobiography to appear in the last few decades; a hypnotic trip to
America's underbelly and one man's tortured soul.
James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the
acclaimed 'LA Quartet':
The Black Dahlia
,
The Big Nowhere
,
LA Confidential
and
White Jazz.
His most recent novel, Blood's a Rover, completes the magisterial
'Underworld USA Trilogy' - the first two volumes of which (
American Tabloid
and
The Cold Six Thousand)
were both
Sunday Times
bestsellers.
